


These words lie inside they hurt me so

by orphan_account



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bad Formatting is a Stylistic Choice I Promise, Internalized Homophobia, Kinda stream of consciousness, M/M, Mentioned violence, technically this is shippy but it's more of a character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-19 07:17:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22207246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: That feeling when you're 13 and you're so in love with your best friend that it feels like it might kill you.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	These words lie inside they hurt me so

**Author's Note:**

> I am not a writer. I entered a fugue state at 3am while thinking about how horrifically unfair Richie and Eddie's storyline is and this happened. Welcome to hell (☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞
> 
> Title stolen from Age of Consent by New Order

That feeling when you're 13 and you're so in love with your best friend that it feels like it might kill you. And maybe it will kill you. You've seen what happens to boys like you, who fall in love with their best friends. You've seen the headlines and you've seen everyone ignore them. Your friend worries about AIDS and maybe that does kill you, just a little bit. Sometimes, you think about that werewolf movie you saw a while back. God it must be scary to have something inside you so dirty and horrible and lethal, something you have to hide from your loved ones so you don't scare them away, something you can't control but really really wish you could. Your friend is hurt and in danger and you're selfish so you hold his face in your hands and try to get his attention because it would be alright if you died as long as he was looking at you. Then someone gets mad at you and starts calling you names and you think about how the reason they hurt you so badly is because they're true. Maybe if you were more careful around the other boys no one would have noticed but you weren't and they did and you wish you knew how to keep your mouth shut. You wish you could say the one thing that's been on the tip of your tongue but you know that he can never ever know so instead you say it silently somewhere he won't notice. He's your best friend and you can't risk losing him so you make sure he doesn't know. It's always been easier to say something meaningless anyway so maybe if you keep talking about nothing that one piece of something will never come up.

That feeling when you can't remember that best friend who you loved when you were 13 but his presence never really left you. If you look, you don't have to look very closely, you can see a piece of him in every man you have ever gotten too close to. Every manager, every hilariously failed attempt at romance, every rushed bathroom hookup that filled you with so much shame that you vomit, they all kinda look the same. Maybe you have a type. You tell yourself that it's fine you've never been in a serious relationship. This is Hollywood, it's par for the course. You know it's not fine because you can feel the void like a phantom limb but you have no clue what it is you're missing. You also know that you still can't say it out loud so you can't trust yourself to tell your own jokes and that's fine because then when people say they suck, it's not because they saw part of you and hated it. They only ever see the you that you want them to see, the one with the fun personality and the confident Voice who doesn't care what they think and definitely definitely definitely sleeps with women. Keep them laughing keep them distracted and they won't notice you're lying. It's not hard, all you've ever done is lie. Maybe you're lonely but at least you chose to be alone, nobody can ditch you for being yourself if you don't let them get close enough to hear the way your voice shakes. If they can't really tell who you are then maybe you're doing it right. 

That feeling when you see that best friend you loved when you were 13 and maybe you shouldn't think about it in the past tense. You thought maybe you had gotten over that intense grip of terror from the phone call but you see his face for the first time in almost 30 years and you feel like you're going to vomit again. Maybe alcohol is a solution just this once because yes, he's married yes, it's to a woman and no, there was never any chance that he was going to find out now. You just got him back and you love him too much to risk losing this again so you push those feelings down the way you practiced when you were 13. Its so easy to go back to 13 with him and pretend you actually got to have a childhood, that you never had to forget him. You put an axe in the head of one of the people who called you names and maybe it should feel cathartic but it just feels like murder. Your friend doesn't save you but you don't care because you never expect him to. All you ever wanted to do was protect him, what happened to you never mattered. You tell him he's strong because you know you really can't say something else. What you see in those lights doesn't matter because now you're staring up at that boy who you've loved for as long as you can remember and he looks so proud of his own bravery and you think about how much you wish you could say something and how much you wish you could kiss him but you never were brave the way he was. You don't get to think about it much though because now he's spitting blood onto your face with a claw through his chest and your name in his mouth and you always thought you might kill him but not like this. 

That feeling when you never get to tell your best friend that you've loved him since you were 13. Maybe you should have stayed with him so he didn't have to be alone in the dark. Dying would probably feel better than than the emptiness you feel now. Dragging you out wasn't worth the effort. Your friends kiss while you wash his blood from your glasses and you're not bitter really. You always knew you wouldn't get the happy ending. He was always going to be the success story and you were going to be the tragedy because he knew how boys should act around other boys and you didn't. You had no plan for what happens after the credits roll. You thought you would be the one whose story ends at the final confrontation. That silent confession on the bridge that felt so grand and romantic is really inadequate now that you'll never get to see his face again. To hear his voice telling you what a stupid idea it was in the first place. You finally got to put a name to that person shaped void you felt for almost 30 years and then you lost him again. This time he's gone for good, though, and you have to keep your memories of him. That bad joke that you shared that he made sure to tell one last time was always one step away from the truth and you wonder if he knew that. Not that it matters now because you'll never know and he'll never know and the both of you will never get the fairytale you let yourself dream of when you were 13.

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna, find me on clown twitter @tozierlesbian


End file.
